Happy newlyweds Alyssa and Stuart McGibbon

Photograph by: Supplied
, Detour Photography

EDMONTON - Alyssa McGibbon’s mom keeps the tiny piece of paper from the now-famous fortune cookie taped to the coffee maker in her kitchen: “Wedding bells are in a family member’s future.”

It was just hours after enjoying Chinese takeout that fateful evening in April 2011, that Wilma Cupido received the phone call from her daughter with news of her engagement to boyfriend Stuart McGibbon.

And, really, by then, it didn’t take Confucius to tell the people who knew them that Stuart and Alyssa were meant to be together for the rest of their lives. It was clear they were in love.

They were introduced through a mutual friend, Carlee. Both 22 at the time, they attended the University of Alberta; he for business, she for physical education. It was December of 2009, and by then, they had both finished exams and were looking forward to decompressing over Christmas.

“Stuart asked Carlee if she had any single friends, so she brought him to the restaurant where we both worked,” says Alyssa. “It was really busy, so we only chatted for a few minutes, but I guess he liked me because he asked her for my number.”

They had a dinner date before she went home to Calgary for Christmas, and over the holidays they texted back and forth. She came back to Edmonton on New Year’s Eve and asked him if he wanted to come with her to a friend’s house party. He didn’t hesitate.

They spent the evening playing board games — “we were on a team together and we cheated mercilessly,” she laughs — but when the clock struck midnight there was no kiss.

That came the next day when they wound up spending the entire day together. And the next day. And the next day.

“It got pretty official pretty quick,” says Alyssa.

She loved how respectful he was, and how chivalrous.

“He was so sweet,” she says. “To this day, he still opens my car door for me.”

He was thoughtful, too. He remembered little things. How she loved the vanilla latte from Starbucks. That peonies and big roses were her favourite flowers. That Oyster Bay sauvignon blanc was her favourite wine.

Most of all, he remembered when she told him that if someone proposed to her with fireworks, it would be impossible for her to say “no.”

They had discussed marriage a few times, and by the time spring of 2011 rolled round, she found herself on tenterhooks, especially on weekends, wondering if this might be the time he popped the question. She was sure it was going to happen the night he took her to Original Joe’s on 109th Street, the site of their first date. But when he suggested a game of mini golf at West Edmonton Mall afterwards — knowing golf was her least favourite thing in the world — she was crestfallen.

She tried to hide her disappointment.

Later, as they wandered around the mall, it became clear to her that a proposal wasn’t in the offing, at least not on this night. That suspicion was only reinforced when Stuart got a call from his best friend, saying his truck had broken down in the middle of nowhere and that he needed help. They were both quiet during the drive, which took them on a seemingly endless route of dirt roads near the airport.

When Stuart suddenly pulled over, she was puzzled.

That’s when she saw it — a roman candle going off in the field a short distance away. Then another. Then another.

In the midst of the pyrotechnics, they got out of the car. That’s when Stuart took her hands in his and got down on one knee.

“He told me he loved me and that I was his best friend, and that he wanted to marry me,” she recalls.

First she laughed. Then she cried. And then, of course, she said “yes,” because after all, what girl could say “no” to a man who would propose to her over fireworks?

They were married in her hometown of Calgary this past summer, on a day that was so perfect it made her cry.

“I was bawling the whole wedding day,” she says, laughing. “From the time we left the house until the end of the ceremony.”

Everything spoke to who they were that day, from the ceremony through to the reception. Friends and family pitched in, helping to make the decorations and the centrepieces for the tables. Alyssa’s cousin, a baker from Victoria, made the wedding cake. Her aunt made the wedding favours, which were bars of soap. Instead of a dessert bar, they had a cookie bar.

“There were bits of us in everything,” says Alyssa. “It took so much time, but it was a labour of love for us. We poured our hearts into that day.”

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